


Learn to be lonely

by Alexia_Imriel_Courcel



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Denial of Feelings, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, angry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-20 05:08:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11913855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexia_Imriel_Courcel/pseuds/Alexia_Imriel_Courcel
Summary: To say you had messed up would be the understatement of the century, but getting caught was even worse for you.  Now not even permitted the anonymity of reconditioning, it seems you will forever be forced to live with your mistake and the disgrace of demotion.What makes it worse that with demotion comes an exile of sorts from the First Order.  Sent to Mustafar to guard the Dark Monolith and Supreme Leaders newest apprentice, things could not get worse.  Left with the agony of heartbreak, it is made worse that your Commander-in-chief is a self righteous jackass, with the compassion of a rock.





	1. Chapter 1

Any relationships involving Stormtroopers were forbidden within the First Order.   The idea that any of you would fraternise with one another, build an attachment with anything that was not the First Order itself was anathema to all it stood for.  It was not to say sexual relations were out of the question though.  Sex you had all been taught was a healthy requirement for all human beings.  The rush of hormones and the aggression that came with the need for it was almost cultivated by your leaders.  You had all been conditioned to shun any weaknesses that came with feelings in favour of a good physical coupling.  A healthy sex life your superiors had decided was essential to developing both your mental and physical tolerances.  They had provided brothels on practically every battle cruiser and military base.  Both human and other acceptable sentient races; men and women dedicated to serving the First Order on their knees.  Their physical prowess honed not for the battle field; but the bedroom.  Each funded by the Order but paid by client rather than a simple retainer; to ensure they kept a cold and emotionally detached desire to fuck. 

Visiting them was like a rite of passage for all serving troupes.  The first time you had been sent to utilize one had been weeks out of training.  Sent by a psych assessment that stated you needed the release; and not just at your own hands.  Fortified with strong contraband spirits, you had gone to seek out the brothels.  Dismissing the computer programme that assigned you by personality to instead pick one based on physical characteristics.  Arguing away the niggling feeling that somehow your first fuck should have been something more than a swipe of your data chip and a coupling with a stranger. 

Immediately you had hated the way it made you feel afterwards; the cheap feeling when you left.  The mechanical responses from your well-conditioned whore somehow both disappointing and cringeworthy as you left the brothel area.  Once back to your cell and alone after you had scrubbed yourself clean in the communal shower; you let yourself fall apart.  Sobbing alone in the silence of your chamber, careful to keep your hiccupping quiet lest you be overheard through the thin walls.  Painfully aware that you had needed something more than the shameful loneliness that had come with your first ever sexual experience. 

Your partner had not even kissed you goodbye; or held you afterwards whilst you recovered.  To have a healthy need for sex was one thing; but to request post coital cuddling would be seen as a weakness.  One that would have put you in danger of another session in reconditing; to show sentiment was something the First Order would not allow.  You hadn’t even managed to reach the orgasm the psychiatrist said you needed.  You had in the end faked it.  Rolling back your head like the woman you had seen in some cheap holo-movie.  Remembering to clench your keegle muscles around the man’s cock so he could report it as a successful coupling. 

The man had not been unkind or rough.  His whole purpose in being there was after all to please you.  But there hadn’t been the mental or emotional connection you had needed to climax.  After that one time, you swore never to go to one again.  Using your fingers in place of a cock, lying to anyone who looked concerned that you were using ‘the facilities’.    

It wasn’t the sex you had hated.  As a physical act it was enjoyable; but the loneliness afterwards and pressure to perform out weighed the benefits to you.  You wanted to be connected to your lover. You needed much more than a quick fuck and then being kicked out.  You wanted to be needed, cherished to love and be loved by another; something the First Order would not permit. 

Lonely and bitter you had used it to your advantage and became exactly what the First Order wanted you to be.  Just another soldier, hell bent on wiping out the Resistance.  Text book correct in your job and ruthless to the letter when carrying out orders.  Even Captain Phasma herself had singled you out for promotion.  Personally pushing you hard to rise further through the ranks than you would ever have achieved alone.  Climbing higher and higher until one day it meant you had met ‘ **Him** ’. 

He was not a stormtrooper, but one of the commissioned officers.  Assigned to the officer as his protection detail, you had escorted him everywhere off ship.  One mission taking you to the core worlds to head his security detail.  You found that he had been as lonely as you were, though he had never admitted it.  Not even to you as you lay together under his bedsheets.  What began as a slow growing of companionship had eventually given way to sex.  Sometimes slow, sometimes heavy and hard, but he had taken you into his bed and you had stupidly let yourself hope it meant his heart too.  By night he would press your body into his mattress and by day you would once more be clad in an iron shell as his bodyguard.  A blaster ready to shoot any who threatened him, your relationship with him only strengthening the lengths you would go to protect him. 

It was a secret you had thought was first to protect the order, until the day you realised that the officers were permitted relationships.  That had he pushed for it; it might have been permissible.  Then you had felt conflicted by his actions and further lies that he cared.  Coping with accepting his lies and fabricating your own, until one day you snapped. 

Had you turned needy when you realised how hurt you were; or had you always craved touch.  Raised from birth by a cold unfeeling organisation, had you always craved that which was wrong.  Did you need to be loved more than to follow your orders.  Somehow you were not able to stop needing that which as a killer was denied to you. 

The first time you had slipped up and told him you missed him and loved him; he had looked at you in horror.  Paling as he laughed at your admission as though you were a stranger who had said something amusing.  A dread heat unfurling in your stomach that made you want to vomit as you realised he was never going to repeat it back to you.  Little things were then done to distance himself from you.  For the purposes of each mission he would connect with you, keeping you close until you were back on the ship.  Then he had built up walls again, pushing you away with assurances that he did care for you, but was busy. 

It wasn’t that you missed the sex; that you could do without; it was that he moved to sever all ties.  Ghosting you from his personal time; until you were left frustrated and floundering.  Not until you had met ‘Him’; had you had realised you even enjoyed sex.  Or that it could fetch with it a connection with it that you would learn to crave.  Previous to him, you had assumed it had been the act itself that had left you dissatisfied. Deciding that perhaps that you could not climax except alone; though now you understood it to be the individual. 

The day you had discovered he was seeing another officer, was the first day you truly felt anger and not just battlefield aggression.  It was also the first day you allowed yourself to see what a naïve fool you had been; watching them interact.  He moved around her with open affection, and you had fled.  Pleading illness to be excused your duty that day, ignoring the summons to return to work the next day.  That had been the first mark on your record.  One that Phasma herself had disciplined you for.  As confused as you were to how it had happened, how you of all people had fucked up.  Whilst secretly you wondered how you had let him in; and how to get rid of the pain that seemed to have permanently settled to dwell under your skin.

From then onwards you had felt only a mixture of physical numbness, and anger.  Not caring about the tears that could run freely under your helmet, when you saw him.  Able to hide your misery in the gym when you pushed yourself further than you had ever done. 

Perhaps you ate, you couldn’t remember, but foolishly you dwelled on your misery and kept it quiet and Phasma seemed at first unconcerned by your admission when she asked what was wrong one day.  Pulling you aside to query the recent medical that stated your weight was below and acceptable level; and your workout time eating into your allocated sleep time.  Apparently, you were not the first to mess up a perfect record this way and she told you to get over it.  But you couldn’t move on becoming the first not to be able to pull themselves back into line.  Unable to report the illegal relationship at psych evaluation, you knew you wouldn’t face the reconditioning unless Phasma gave up on you and reported it.  Slowly becoming an adept at hiding your real feelings.

 

But it had all come to a head the day you were placed again directly under him on a mission.  The man had not listened to your advice that his battle plan was idiotic, and showed little chances of success.  It had led to failure, the loss of so many of your subordinates lives that once re-aboard the ship you had sought him out in anger for your comrade’s lives.  The wet crack his cheek had made as your armoured fist connected with it was thoroughly satisfying.  Enough that you had repeated the action, then kicked repeatedly the soft unprotected flesh of his stomach.  Stopping only when you were pulled off him and realised much to your shock and anger, the face of the visiting General Hux yelling at you to ‘stand down’. 

It had been an instant court-martial, and General Hux had not been as easily fooled as other officers that it was for your offending ex-lover’s idiocy.  Personally, overseeing your interrogation; it still had taken hours for him to coax the real answer to why you had attacked the Officer.  His nostrils flaring as you admitted the history you and the officer had had.  It hadn’t really been entirely for the loss of your comrades lives as you had first claimed.  It had been for the betrayal to you, a man who claimed to care for you had shown his true feelings; he was a charlatan and an idiot.  He had clearly felt so little for you when he had ordered you to an action that meant you would have to send your men to die.  Red faced you had hung your head low throughout your admission.  Apologising for the betrayal to the First Order’s ideal that you had disobeyed in loving this man.  Assuming by his hissed intake of breath as he stormed from the room; that reconditioning was the least of your problems now.

The result was of course a demotion.  Though the General had been more sympathetic than you had thought your misconduct warranted.  A full enquiry had taken place, the Officer had faced his own punishment for abusing his station.  You heard from your holding cell that, assumed incompetent he was reconditioned and demoted to overseeing menial labour camps.  But for you, the real punishment was far worse than his reconditioning.

It seemed that the First Order had reacently formed a new alliance.  A young force sensitive known only as Kylo Ren had joined its ranks; and already he was known to be dangerous.  Whispered tails of a jedi killer had reached your ship just over a year or two ago, though nobody had seen him yet.   Now it seemed you of all people, were set to meet him.  He had agreed to be the Supreme Leaders apprentice and in light of this, an old Imperial building had been given over to him on the planet Mustafar.  Your sentence was to be an exile of sorts from the Order.  You were to be placed in the palace on Mustafar, as chief of security to the apprentice.  Your real punishment for falling in love was to be forever lonely.  Forever banished from the First Order, you were assigned to provide security to a fallen Jedi.

You wondered then where this new member would fit within the order.  You had been told of his title, and given some brief instructions on how to address him.  He would be a commander, the title you had learnt all Jedi used in battle.  But of his requirements; his personalities and needs you knew nothing.  The man was a Force-Adept, he had trained for years as a jedi so he would be powerful. Why did he need a lowly Stormtrooper then to provide security for him?  The idea was laughable that he would even need a security force.  Especially from a none sensitive, which meant only one thing; you were being sent out to act as a servant.  Trying to hide the insult from the others, you had packed up your meagre belongings and obeyed the order to board the shuttle. 

Your armour was to be left behind, another thing you were to do without in this new life.  Apparently in this new role as his servant, you would have no use for it or any of the skills you had spent a life time developing.  

The long journey was taken alone and in silence.  No one would talk to you, not when your crime was made so public.  No one had thought yourself friends with had even turned out to bid you farewell.  Better to keep their distance from any association with you.  You had caused this when you had chosen to go against the status quo; you had decided to make yourself different.  They all knew you were being expelled.  Now that you were anathema to the Order, no one would risk tarnishing themselves with you and your reputation.

It seemed on arrival into the planet’s atmosphere, a good place to be.  Mustafar appeared as bleak and sunless as your mood.  Angry flows of larva dissecting the planet’s black surface.  Bubbling pots of cleansing liquid fire; who’s heat hardly touched your broken exterior.  The shuttle had flown on through it all, a black dot on the horizon rapidly morphing into a colossal tower carved of a dull-sheened black stone.  It was suitably melodramatic and foreboding for an exile you decided.  Standing firmly on a cliff of sheer rock, built over a stream of molten hot larva.  Aware that for all of the molten heat on this planet you shivered at the sight of it.  Your skin radiating a chill that seemed to eat into your bones; turning your core to sluggish ice. 

Stepping from the shuttle only allowed it to seep deeper into you.  No one came to greet you, and the shuttle did not radio to check you were expected; too keen to escape what you would never be permitted to.  The loneliness and coming isolation bonding with your blood on almost a cellular level.  You could almost taste the atmosphere, there was almost a palpable pain in this building.  A fathomless sense of suffering and numbing sense of separation to it, that in your heartbreak you only wanted to throw yourself deeper into.

The ramp closed tight as soon as your feet touched the landing pad.  The engines having never fully been disengaged, just the thrusters changing their directions to take off.  You looked around for a method of escape, but there were no other ships in the hangar.  Even if there were it was one, it was not like you could actually pilot it; this was to be your prison.  The First Order was like a well-oiled machine; pilots flew, and stormtroopers fought.  The officers gave the orders and you had broken that machine; you had needed to be put aside.

Tentatively you yelled a greeting, your voice wavering, straining after so much disuse.  Berating yourself for such a quiet action and insisting you yell louder.  Clinging uselessly to you roll number as though it still mattered here.  You were expected and there was no way he didn’t know you were here; there must be alerts to notify him of an approaching ship.  Straining your ears, you listened out for an answer.  Anything, or at the very least the generalised sounds of life, something to guide you to the Commander. 

There was nothing, not even footsteps or the whirrs of machinery that might have hinted at a droid.  Just the chugging sounds of larva flowing in the distance.  Nobody was coming to greet you, and it was stupid to stand here. Clutching your duffle bag close, you slowly circled the large empty hangar until your feet found a regular marching rhythm on the polished stone floor.  Searching until you absentmindedly slipped through a side door, and into the fortress.  Your feet leading you down a dimly lit corridor and hopefully eventually towards the living quarters of the building. 

The building seemed to be as bleak internally as its exterior.  Made of the same black rock inside, as outside.  Huge heavy blocks that even a machine would have struggled to cut.  There was nothing ornamental or homely about it.  Just hard lines with harder chrome metal accents that left you in no doubt that the owner would be as cold and unfeeling as his home. 

The corridor carried on, passing various doors you ignored, though here and there you could see carvings on the stones surface. A mix of runes and writings intersecting various patterns, which may have had meaning to its former owner, but the significance was totally lost on your limited knowledge of languages. 

The corridor ended abruptly, opening into a hall way of sorts.  A nexus of other door ways that had you pausing indecisively.  You had never been here, though as chief of security you hardly thought your presence could be classed as intrusive.  This was your posting, there were no other lodgings like this on this planet, this had to be where you were expected.  But if so, why had no one bothered to greet you?  Not even a service droid had been sent to show you the way.  Had anyone even though to even prepare a room for you. 

You picked a door at random. Pushing it open, to discover a small sitting room.  Oddly lit by a large stained-glass portal that shone magnified daylight onto a huge portrait of a woman.  The room warmly lit and so oddly out of place in this cold palatial fortress.  It was of course not an unfamiliar face, you had seen pictures of the old Queen of Naboo before.  She had been one of the last voted to power before the fall of the senate, a woman who had borne the Jedi Anakin Skywalker’s children.  A formidable woman who had sadly allowed sentiment to interfere, it had led to her death and her children’s associations with her backdated way of thinking; the un-doings of the order the Old Imperium had cultivated. 

You moved closer to look at her, aware she was very beautiful.  Running a finger along the frame that housed the protected painting; drawn to the image underneath the transparasteel.  Noting that this picture showed her in a position none had before; here she was noticeably pregnant with the twins.  All knew how the children had been stolen from their father after the birth.  Hidden away from Darth Vader; a move that had led to his ultimate failure aboard the second Death Star.  It was the very reason you were taught that attachments were forbidden amongst the lower ranks.  There would be time for love later, duty was for now.  Had the children not come into the hands of the Rebel Alliance the war would never have been lost; there would be no need for your current sacrifice. 

The First Order would have continued to run the Imperial senate from the backgrounds.  Remaining as puppet masters in the shadows of the galaxy for the betterment of all mankind.  Their puppets would have moulded the galaxy into the correct future.  Order would have been maintained, not this chaos and bigotry in the New Republic.  As it was, her misplaced sentiment cost the First Order it’s best puppets; both Darth Vader and Lord Siddeous had lost at the Battle of Endor.  Without their guidance the Imperial forces scattered, and unable to maintain their strong holds the First Order kept quiet, retreating into the outer rims until now.  Now they were almost ready to strike; with this new leader and the Jedi all but extinct; it was almost time to strike again.  The First Order was ready and with Commander Ren at its helm, he would help lead you all to glory. 

You wondered at that about this force user.  The man whose home you were assigned to guard, the man was promised to be the one to lead you all to where Vader had failed.  What sort of man was he, and how would living with him effect you?  Oh, you expected to be able to fulfil your duties correctly, no matter the task set to you.  But how would it feel to work directly under a man so powerful? A man so great that the First Order would soon move to reveal themselves to the Galaxy.  To once more claim their rightful place as the law giver to the known systems.  To achieve greatness he too would have to be detached from people, above all sentiments.  Far less emotional than the late Darth Vader was rumoured to have been.  The same mistakes could not be repeated, there would be no space for error; no place for sentiment. 

How perfect for you; the venomous part of your still charred and painful heart whispered.  There were no chances for you here to make the same mistakes as before.  This would be your chance for redemption. You would get a hold of yourself and re-clad yourself in an indifferent armour with time.                

A tingling sensation in the back of your spine made you turn around.  The sensation of being watched proved to be correct as you faced the body staring in the door way.  It was incredibly tall and perhaps even non-human; you were not sure what his black robes hid.  A black shapeless cloak covered a humanoid shaped body.  Its face covered by a black mask, hidden under a billowing and ripped cowl.  Ashamed to have been caught unaware, it took you a moment longer than you wanted to pull to attention.  You waited to be greeted, afraid to speak out of term, just in case this was your superior.  You fought the urge to scowl at the cruelness of Hux’s sentence; if he was of an alien race, no one had told you to expect to serve a non-human.  If anything, you thought the First Order tended to shun, non-human lifeforms.  You had been led to believe throughout your training they were rarely equal in their abilities as your species.  Perhaps you quelled your annoyance with; in some ways this thing was mechanical, a new form of a service droid.  Waiting transfixed as it slowly tilted its covered head to one side.  Whatever it was, it was studying you; running its sensors over you.

Definitely not human you decided, and risked being the superior body in the room by speaking first, reeling off both your name and rank number.

“Your rank is of no consequence here.”

Mechanical and succinct, there was a grating quality to his speech that suggested all of you was beneath importance here and the silence that followed was deafening.  Eclipsed by the rush of blood through your ears as your face coloured as crimson as the First Order insignia hanging from the wall behind you.

“You are the disgraced soldier?”

Your mouth dry, you nodded; unable to speak.  Trying uselessly to swallow the ball of cotton in your throat, your tongue unresponsive as it stuck to the roof of your mouth.  This was the first time anyone had addressed your stationing here as a punishment, and you hated the honesty in that statement.

Whatever this thing was, you loathed it and already you were debating ways of dismantling it.  Shocked to realise as it came forwards, that it might be organic after all.  Beneath the black pleats of its clothing, its chest strained as it rose and fell; indicative of breathing you realised.  Listening now for tell tail clicks in the mouth piece of the mask that told you it was taking in air.  So humanoid then, not droid, your mouth forming a thin line of distaste as you realised this thing, was Kylo Ren.  Addressing him now as the Commander, you took a deep breath to remind him that you were reassigned; not disgraced.

“Your past sexual history with the First Order, does not concern me.  Nor does General Hux’s misconception that I am in need of one of his demoted soldiers to babysit me.  I am new to the First Order, this does not make me defenceless; or in need of female companionship if that is what he thinks.”

The second part of the statement was the insult, the part that made you want to run.  A life time of military discipline holding you in place for your superior officer as he came towards you.  Was that what everyone who knew of your punishment, though General Hux had had in mind by stationing you here?  Did the Commander really thing General Hux would have stooped to such a unprofessional punishment for you.  The closer he got, the more you wanted to launch yourself at his throat.  Even though you could see the defining bulge of muscles in his arms and the hilt of what you took to be a lightsabre at his side, you were that cross that you would risk it.  Your chest heaving as anger flashed through your eyes, a final foot fall placing him well within the confines of your personal space.  His chest inches from yours as you, looked up at the mouth piece of his mask, dropping your gaze slowly to his chest and then the rest of him.  There was no way he could ever be considered defenceless.  He was enormous, one well-placed blow with those rapidly clenching and unclenching fists, could probably kill you.  Now he was intentionally threatening you, was he?  Not happy with insulting you, he wanted you to fear him too.  Tightening your posture, you decided what would annoy him the most, would be for you to be professional.  By not responding to the taunts, he would soon learn it was pointless to goad you.

He was not getting the message anytime soon, that you refused to let on that you were not intimidated by him.  Hoping that his next order, would be to command to return to your former ranks of the First Order and back to General Hux.  Yearning already to be sent packing from this jackass, before your eyes gave into their angry demands to moisten.  You were both mortified and humiliated even at your court martial, you had not been treated so belittling as he was now.  Lips pressed together, you did not dare to speak the request to be dismissed for fear of hearing your voice crack. 

After a while he stepped away from you, gesturing to your bag and giving the instructions to follow.  Silently leading on through corridors and up wide bank of stairs to the first floor of the building.  Turning right on the first landing and leading you to the door at the very end of the veranda, and removing an access cylinder he unlocked the door and pushed it open.

“Until I have worked out what to do with you, this will be your room.  You may access any rooms on this floor and the one above.  Also you may have free access throughout the floors below; but you will stay off both the top floor and the roof.”

Then he was gone.  No time to argue that as chief of his security, you would need access to everywhere and not just where he gave you permission.  Leaving your peripheral vision, a flurry of black and chrome vanishing upwards onto the stairs.


	2. Chapter 2

You room was more than colossal.  The dormitory barrack you had slept in during your cadet training, had probably been smaller.  Black and gold flecked flooring, gave way to lush carpets and a cool interior.  The plus and decidedly feminine furnishings, clearly meant for someone with more standing and femininity than yourself.  Its focal point, was the largest and most ornate bed you had ever seen; not that you had seen many others to compare it with.  It would have been more appropriate to house one of the brothel workers than yourself, making your cheeks sting with shame when you thought back to Kylo Ren’s assurances that he didn’t need a prostitute. 

For him to have been affronted that you might think yourself here for sexual purposes, was another reason to suspect he was human; or at the very most a slight human variant.  To expect you to be of the right species to both tempt him, and physically manage to copulate with him, it was most probable to assume he was human.      

He left you, without so much as a stiff goodbye.  Placing what you took to be an access cylinder on one of the lacquered sides, whilst you paced over to the window.  The underfloor was unlike the cooler walls, warm to the touch.  Heated you guessed, by the outside larva flows, it was also littered with rugs made from the skins of exotic, and dangerous beasts.  It was the oddest of rooms to pick for your chief of security, and confusing to boot when you explored the nearby refresher. 

To say that Kylo Ren had been so reluctant to have you here, he had stocked the cabinets well.  Toiletries more lavish than those found in the shower dispensers aboard First Order ships and bases, were neatly stacked up.  Not just a variety of them, but an abundance of them too, lined up in neat rows that you didn’t want to mess by exploring.  A rack of towels where neatly folded next to the sunken bath.  It was more luxury and care than you were used to, even going as far as to stock sanitary products, and period relief items in the back of one closet.

Whomever had stocked this, had been both kind and considerate; perhaps a little too much so.  The practicality spoke of perhaps a woman’s touch.  Or worse, that you were to be expected by those who had prepared for your arrival, to perform womanly duties to Kylo Ren.  But you were the only human here; were you not?

You did not expect to report for duties the same day as you relocated.  But the last seven cycles had not improved on your first impression of this thing, you had gathered was Kylo Ren.  It was less that he was rude and obtrusive when you spoke, as he rarely made time to speak to you.  Nor did he take the time to show you around the Monolith. 

To say your new commander in chief was an asshole, was an understatement; nothing you could do was good enough.  He would berate you for leaving the slightest task undone, or worse had not realised he wanted them doing.  Refusing to hand over to you anything that would enable you to do the job role, General Hux had posted you here to do.  It meant that there were tasks to which he had left you unable to complete; because he hadn’t explained how to do them.

He wasn’t a complete idiot, of that much you were sure.  But for all he was intelligent, he lacked the patience to properly interface with the First Order technology.  But that was not what made him stupid; it was his stubborn refusal to have you explain how to do things.  Simple computer based tasks you learnt in training, were beyond him and he couldn’t even work out how to change a simple droid personality programme. 

That was his main complaint with the mechanics and computers; that they didn’t interface with him well.  Not many of the droids lasted long around him, to build any sort of repour.  The enforcer droids and the battle droids you could understand, they had a deliberately objectional personality as standard.  But with the exception of a nasty, small, black, BB unit; he would ritually slash his way through the others.  Especially the protocol droids.  Either he really hated them, or they really failed at completing whatever simple task they had been set to do by you.  You were a soldier not a technician; but it soon became almost a weekly ritual to move at least one defective, or mangled body to the fortress’s mechanical hospital.

There was no other sentient living in the Fortress; which meant his removal of the only domestic help you had made it impossible to catch up on the building pile of metal carcases.  You had asked for assistance, but what he had done to the poor mouse droid carrying the message was unspeakable.  Then as more time went by, you began to suspect that his problems with the protocol droids, was more his personality that theirs.  A pity really, since the only other human on this goddess forsaken rock refused to speak more than simple orders to you.  Some company; no matter how mechanical, would have been pleasant.  But instead you got the heavy breathing, of Kylo Ren’s vocoder, his head tilting to your questions. Then when he chose to answer, that menacing tone.  Intersected with a sense of annoyance from him, that perhaps you should have been intimidated by; but instead just found annoying.  Your jaw ached, and nightly your head throbbed with the stress of whatever he had put you through that day.  One thing was sure by week two; you really hated Kylo Ren. 

By week three you had been left alone in the Dark Monolith.  Kylo Ren had been called away for off planet training.  He would be back in just over a galactic week, but for now you could work; uninterrupted.  You had managed to get two of the protocol droids back in order, and the plans for the planet’s security network.  By day six you decided you deserved a little holiday before Commander Ren came back.  You had been nearly a month without a single day off.  Combing every inch of the permitted floors, you kept searching until tucked away in one small cupboard you hit the jack pot.  Finding one whole case of Alderaan wine and a half-finished, but still drinkable bottle of Corellian brandy.

It hadn’t been at all that you had gone looking for alcohol.  Just that you were bored and without any decent company; a luxury food or drink item would have been a good treat.  Now you had hit the jackpot.  The stash was hidden behind empty boxes, and so covered in dust; you didn’t think for one moment that Kylo Ren knew they were there.  Alderaan wine sold for thousands of credits by the bottle on the black market; officially only citizens of New Alderaan were permitted to sell it.  You were in for a treat and bloody deserved it after dealing with one six and a half foot man-child.   

Hauling the box out, you stashed one bottle in your bedroom (for emergencies only) and put the rest into the large kitchen.  The only room in the building you considered homely and the one place Kylo Ren stayed out of.  A trashy holo-vid and you opened up the bottle; drinking it from a surprisingly fragile crystal goblet.

There was nobody here, no one you could voice your internal frustrations at the Commander’s treatment of you.  The drunker you got; the angrier you became at your current lot in life.  The frustration at a job role you were not permitted to do properly, boiling under your skin; itching to find a way out like a rabid dog.  You current position was a joke, and General Hux must have seen that before he exiled you here.  You were not Kylo Ren’s chief of security; you were being treated little more than an unwelcome guest in his house.  As far as punishments went you would have rather had the reconditioning; at least that would not come with the sense of failure this did. 

Soon the both the first bottle was gone; and the goblet long since turned aside.  The wine warmed your stomach and your patience, turning you jittery and restless with ire.  You were sick of Kylo Ren and you had had enough of his self-groomed, self-imposed ego to last you a lifetime.  He never even permitted you his face, hiding himself and any humanity he had behind hid mask.  What was he you thought, taking another gulp of wine; old, ugly or scared.  Maybe you thought, he was actually an unhuman and that was why he kept the mask on; perhaps Supreme Leader Snoke had him keep it on to hide his failure to be born a pure human. 

You had never seen anything good or useful of him.  He never spoke beyond voicing his criticism of your own honed skills; the ones General Hux himself had commended you on.  You had fucked up personally; not professionally. Though it had bled into your professional life, it was not that which had got you sent here; you knew that General Hux was secretly understanding of your little assault on your officer.  No, being dumped here, on this barren rock; was because you had shown attachment. Your sentiment had earned you this exile, not your misconduct.  So, who the hell was he to try and tell you that you were doing your job incorrectly? 

Soon the next bottle was almost done; and you were definitely more drunk now, than you had ever been before in your life.  It felt good to be out of control; but it also felt sickeningly bad to be this intoxicated.  If you didn’t concentrate then the walls would spin, and there was a threatening warning of bile, building in the pit of your stomach.   But you were approaching the point at which your drunken self, was finding itself fixated on the man who had led you here and you wanted those thoughts gone.  The bitterness that dwelled in the back ground of each of your days since you had discovered him with another woman; was becoming thicker.  Swelling tight in a brand around your heart; threatening to choke you with its poisoned edge.  Where once there had been nothing but raw, acid-edged pain, now resentment that he had put you through this was far more prevalent. 

You had never been able to call out the officer for his part in the subterfuge, or to ask the woman if she had known about you.  Not permitted to address the issue with the officer who had used you, and abused your naivety at not understanding the rules was hardest to swallow.  That he did and had not pressed for special dispensation, was more painful that seeing him with someone else; it was the understanding that you didn’t matter to him.  He had lied to you and never wanted the closeness that you thought he did; he just didn’t care.  You thought back to your first understandings of your feelings; both of caring for him. and realising he had decided to put you aside.  With no better understanding, you could only think that you had been the problem; you had been too easily naively manipulated. 

It was hard to swallow; hard to accept that you had been worth so little and with the last couple of sips; you descended into tears.  Scalding how rivulets that burnt at your soul as much as your cheeks.  You didn’t want him back; you would never go back to someone who had so badly betrayed you.  But you wanted the closeness back, you wanted to love; and to be loved.  Even if it was a deception, you wanted to feel cherished; just for one moment.  But that was why you had been exiled wasn’t it; because you were not to be permitted love.    

Had she been prettier then; or else more educated?  You could not decide on which had been the deciding factor in his choice; which had made her better than you.  Neither one you could change.  You would never be permitted an officer’s schooling, and you would always have battle-scars.  You would never be alone with him; or any other man.  Alone on this planet with an unfeeling robotic Kylo Ren, there was never to be a second chance.  No way of going back and begging forgiveness from him; or trying again with another. 

You were torn; as to which you resented most in the isolation.  The sunny part of you, that could be lied to, wanted to go back and have second chance with him.  But the bitter, twisted anger filled pit of your shrivelled heart wanted to watch him suffer; to be able to flaunt your affections to another publicly to taunt him.  That part wanted nothing more than to go back and to make him feel exactly what you did now; rejection. 

Neither were permissible; no.  You were best forgetting it. Best to learn to do without care and affection once more, learn be lonely; your own companion.  Learn to love yourself and the order, nothing more; nothing less.  You should have already known you were on your own.

You were so given over to your pep talk, that the crunch of booted footfalls against flagstone made you jump suddenly.  Causing the stool, you had been seated on to go flying and you too.  Leaving you sprawled out, snivelling on the floor.  Both at the pain in your knees, and your miserable heart ache; both made all the more worse by the unreasonableness of drink.   

Initially there was anger at him interrupting your personal time.  Then it switched to outright fury at what he had done.  There had been no sirens.  Nor the personal alert you had set up to let you know his ship was close to arrival, let alone landed and evacuated without a single claxon.  Somehow the little shit had broken into your system and had removed himself from it. 

“How the fuck, am I supposed to do my job, if you refuse to let me.”

The last time you had been this angry with a superior, it had earnt you this demotion.  But given what it was, you doubted anything could be worse than this; nothing Kylo Ren did to you would top General Hux’s placement of you.   

“You are drunk; so I will let your insolence slide.”

His modulated voice displayed that he held little more than boredom and contempt at your emotional distress; rather than anger at you swearing at him.  Obviously, he found your current state less than endearing, though given the swollen mess of your tear flushed face, you were not surprised.

Sitting up you sniffed.  Rubbing the backs of your wrists under the mess of snot and tears under your nose.  Sitting up straighter in a drunk’s, attempt to look un intimidated and feign nonchalant superiority and reasoning.   

“Yes! And I have good reasons to be.”

“There is never a good reason to be so inebriated; especially when tasked with the security of my home.”

You scowled at him.  His alterations to the system had made it impossible again to do your job, and yet he was calling you out for it.  If there was ever a good reason not to do things his way; this had proven it.  What would have happened if had lost control of his ship; if someone had been trying to sneak onto the planet with it.  Experience to date, had already taught you that his way, was not the best way and this just added to it.  You hated him even more for his lack of compassion; his lack of comprehension as to why you would get that drunk that you could forget everything and everyone. 

“Then you are a pretentious jackass.” 

The words tumbled out of your mouth without you really realising that you had thought them; let alone voiced them.  It probably was a bad idea; but you were in too deep now.  Climbing to a standing position you lunged for the bottle of brandy.  Uncorking it and pulling it to your lips; you were going to face punishment tomorrow anyway.  You may as well make it worth it.

Before you could take another drink, it had shattered in your hand.  Somehow exploding in mid pull and leaving you drenched in the expensive liquor and your hand full of sharp glass and blood.

“I think you have had enough.”

You knew then that he had somehow caused the explosion; that not only was he the reason the brandy was no more.  But also, that he had caused the glass bottle to cut the palm of your hand.  Perhaps when sober, you would feel the throbbing sting of the glass filled cut.  But for now, all you felt was rage; and he was a suitable target for you to lash out at.     

“Fuck you Ren!  What would you know of what is enough. I don’t see you hurting; do you even know how to feel anything?”

“I know that resentment is like drinking poison, and waiting for the other person to die.”

His quieter impartment of wisdom; was the most sensible thing he had ever said to you.  Even if pride made you shake off his attempts at giving you advice, like a dog does salt water.   You could not imagine anyone being permitted to hurt a man with such low emotional maturity as Kylo Ren.

Perhaps it was that lower impartment of wisdom that had distracted you; perhaps the alcohol in your system made your senses more sluggish than you had realised.  But when you opened your eyes again, he was wrapping a clean kitchen cloth around your bloodied fist.  It was the first ‘human’ gesture you had experienced from him, and it was confusing.  The idea that he would stoop to bandage your hand was odd.  More so that he would have the compassion to think to look after someone.  It didn’t let him off the hook entirely; though it did take the edge off your temper.  Cooling it back to moderate indifference again, as you reminded yourself that he had cut your hand; not you.   

“Who taught you that one?”

You were neither kind, nor verbally accepting in your tone as you spat out that question.  Trying to suggest by the derogatory tone that you found his moral lecturing.  That just like everything else he did; his understanding was completely hypothetical and manipulative.  Showing an inert inability to miss-comprehend what people really needed; or else wilfully warp it better to his own reasoning’s and needs.   

“My mother.”         

His flatly stated answer had surpassed any expectation you had for humility from him.  It was closed and succinct. As much information as you were going to receive from him; and yet more personal than you would have ever expected. For all was so blatantly spoken; the source of his advice had been so far from his usual cold exterior that it took you by surprise.  Making you realise that no matter who Kylo Ren was, he had once been small child too. That he had a mother; and entirely human construct and connection to the world you both moved in.  Your previous nastiness had gone, and your mouth opened and closed in shock.  Floundering for something to say to justify your previous bad temper.  Somehow bringing his mother into this and imparting wisdom she had shared with him was personal.  The first flash of his humanity; the first inkling that there was a man under that mask.    


	3. Chapter 3

For all that the drinking of alcohol was expressly forbidden to Stormtroopers.  You, like so many others had of course indulged, in the past.  It was considered to be almost your duty when stationed in a barrack near one; to sneak out and visit the local cantina.  Almost an unofficial rite of passage into adulthood to wake up with your first hangover.  To have to head out to training with a pounding head and churning gut rot.

So, to wake the morning after imbibing so much alcohol, to no such occurrence, was at best unsettling.  More nerve-wracking though, to find yourself in the meds bay.  Stripped down to just your military issue undergarments; covered only by a single crisp, white sheet. 

You were alone.  Accompanied only by a single medical droid.  Its bulky rotund form a mix of black and chrome spindly arms.  Each set into a tower like structure and moving independently, as it whirled around the blinding white tiles of the private medibay.  Taking care to check your vitals, it flashed a series of yellow and red lights at you, before switching out the depleted IV bag of fluids and mixed nutrients.  Swapping the large bag for a fresh one. 

The added fluids and the nutrients contained in the bag should have replaced anything that made you feel weak.  But others otherwise you felt fine.  The droid whirling around you, kept on bleeping at you as it did its duty.  The series of whirrs and burrs, perhaps the most comforting sounds you had heard in a long while.  The closest you would get to soothing in this hell hole.   

The bag began dispensing its medicine directly into your bloodstream, and you looked further around the room.  Unsure how you felt that there was no sign of Kylo Ren.  Though common sense told you he was the only person who could have put you in here.  There were no droids capable still left functioning, he had seen to that.  So perhaps it was guilt that made him carry you here; it certainly was not because he inherently felt it to be his duty.     

Nor could you remember blacking out.  Though it was the only possible solution; you had been far more inebriated than you had ever been before.  You felt disgusted at yourself; at where you little weakness and led you.  Hating yourself for it more so that you had ever felt the need to; wishing again that you could go back and undo the first weakness that led you to the officer’s bed.     

Slowly you shuffled to sit up.  Made more determined by your anger not to cry.  Furious to the point of shaking that you had been proven weak again; but equally as cross that you did not know how not to.  It was a struggle.  But you managed it; aided by one of the droid’s many limbs, supporting your back.  The room swaying a little with the effort.  You felt ill; and not from the hangover.  Whilst you knew that you should have been ill; too ill to even sit up.  This didn’t feel like a hangover; it felt worse.  Whatever it was; was really not great.

“Your alcohol intake last night was beyond excessive for someone nota permitted such intoxicants.”   

Had he snuck in whilst the droid was tending to you; or had he just come in?  Probably the later given his innate ability to sneak and sulk around the fortress.  Doubtless this was him come to gloat you realised; shrugging your shoulders and pretending that his words had not touched a raw nerve.  You didn’t need to hear more of his more moral lecturing; so far, he had hardly been the exact image of supportive.

“Your nutrient and vitamin levels are almost dangerously low; and there are ketones in your urine output.  Your diet seems to have been less than acceptable of late; this is unacceptable.  For all you are no longer a soldier; you are still a First Order asset.  You have a duty to ensure you take better care of yourself.  It seems you have more of a death wish than anyone had realised; the First Order does not encourage such recklessness.”

That last lecture alone, was far more than you had hear Kylo Ren speak during your short and turbulent working relationship with the man.  The last twenty-four hours had been a less than interesting revelation.  One your badly beaten pride had not you had not wanted to see; let alone live through.  You scowled.  Desperately wishing he would go away; and leave you alone to your misery; running your hand through your shorn hair.  Realising with a jolt that in the month since you had been fetched here you had failed to keep it to the regulation length.  When had you last looked in a mirror?  It was less the dark spiky stubble now, and becoming longer; almost an inch in some places.  It stood up around your scalp, gradually becoming a mad riot of colourful hair, that did not want to conform to any set style.  You wondered if you should have cut it.  Did it matter anymore that you had hair; not the regulation shorn cut?  Which did you want? It would not do after all, to fall any further from grace.  Not that you could fall much lower than you had.

“I didn’t think that it mattered to you, what happened to me?”

Behind that expressionless mask he could have been anyone; but you had long ago at least decided he was human.  He always wore it, you had never seen his face to substantiate that opinion.  But from the foods he had sent into his room and the scant few records; he had to be. 

From the weight of his sadly, very relevant wisdom; you added now that he had to be much older than you.  All of it added to his self-titled importance; the entitled way he lectured you on your short fallings.  He was not just better than you because he was your superior officer; he thought himself wholly better than you in every way.  And why not; you were no longer even a soldier; you didn’t even keep that rank.

“It matters not to me, on a personal level.  But you owe it to the First Order to cease this self-deprecation.  You owe it thanks enough for your survival; its tutorage, to ensure your body is the honed tool you have been trained to be.”

It seemed that you seemed to owe so much, to so many.  Too bad that nobody seemed to owe you anything; too bad that they constantly wanted more.  Kylo Ren seemed to be considering something, though what it was, you were really not sure.  His head tilted to one side, a slight hum coming from under the mask as he took a deep breath, whilst you ignored him.

It was insubordination, you already knew that.  But this continued moral lecture was becoming too much to stomach: eve if deep down you knew he was right.  No longer under Phasma’s tutorage you had lost far more weight, and given how little fat you were permitted to carry as a Stormtrooper; most of it was muscle.  If you bothered to look in a mirror, you would see how pale you had become.  Your cheekbones would stick too far out, and there would be heavy black bags under your eyes.  You had mostly pretended to yourself that it was a mix of work and stressing over Kylo Ren; but in truth that was not the reason you barely slept these days.  You had lost yourself; become so bitter that nothing mattered anymore; not even the risk of disobeying your superior.  Everything you had learnt; all that should have been that indoctrinated into you, until you should practically breathe subservience to the likes of Kylo Ren seemed to have been forgotten.  To take care of yourself in the prescribed way; to rest correctly. To eat just the perfect amounts of calories and nutrients should have been second nature.  But you had forgotten all of that in your misery; Kylo Ren was correct.  Your behaviour was below contemptable.  The First Order was both father and mother to you, and as such you at least owed it the respect you denied yourself.

“How do you do it Commander Ren; how do you all do it?”

Your voice choked.  You were frighteningly close to tears; closer than you had ever been before.  Strange that you had felt closer to such a weak emotion here of all places.  Numb with fury and pain you blinked them away; refusing to give him the satisfaction of your tears.  Defying your body’s desire to break down, and sob.  You were not weak, and he would not pity you if you were.

“How do I do what?”

The vocoder always added a level of boredom to his voice which made him sound dismissive of you.  At the side of you, his fingers had curled into tight fists.  The leather of his gloves squeaking as he clenched them tighter.  The noise almost as deafening as your breathing as the silence hung between you. 

“Not feel; how is it possible. Please I don’t want it.”

Your voice was strangled and frail.  Everything you had sworn you would not be; though you still held onto your tears.  Closing your eyes against them, and the world and laying back your head against the soft pillow.  You had not cried then and you would not embarrass yourself by doing so now; not before him at least. The silence went on, not a single suggestion of compassion from him; not that you had expected it.  Just your combined breathing, his spluttered and mechanical; yours slow and steadying.  Determined to regain a hold on yourself; you would not let him of all people see how weak you were.    

“If you cannot be trusted to honour the effort it has spent on you this far, I will ensure you do so myself.”

Your self-pity was eclipsed wholly by your anger.  Fire drying up your tears, and bringing forth once again the coldness the First Order had conditioned you to have.  That was the worst possible outcome for yourself.  Worse than being exiled here; couldn’t he leave you alone.  Wasn’t it bad enough to endure his idiotic ideals, without him deciding he was going to in some way take care of you.  Could he not see that he was the real problem here; he was the thing that made life unbearable?

“I can take care of myself Commander Ren; I do not need an overgrown toddler making sure I eat.”

Within a heartbeat the snout of his mask was in your face.  His shoulders squared in an echo of your own anger as his chest rose and fell erratically.  This raw anger was good, making you smirk in acceptance of the response you had wrought from him.  He disliked being pulled for his weaknesses, just as much as you did yours.

“I believe as both you and I now exist outside the rest of the First Order command structure; Lord Ren would be a better title; or perhaps Master Ren.”

You hissed, your fury bringing you to boiling point and beyond.  Whilst both were acceptable titles, using them would be a direct insult to your own station; or rather a refusal for him to give you any.  Neither Lord nor master where military titles.  Both were suggestive of snivelling servitude; rather than an understanding between ranks.  You were not prepared to call him either; your brain running through which choice name you wanted to call him; whilst your mouth seemed un responsive to your insults.

“Save your strength; you have dwelled too long in this self-misery, it is loathsome and far beneath you of all people.  Until you earn back your title; I refuse to insult Supreme Leader’s mighty organisation by using it.”

Unable to speak, you did the only thing left to you to show your displeasure.  Stupidly pulling back your hand to punch him, stopped as he enveloped your fist in his larger clawed hand.  Neither pushing your hand back, or crushing your fist.  Just effortlessly holding it there, as though your hardest efforts to hurt him were as inconsequential as a gnat’s bite.

“That only goes to further my argument; the penalty for striking a superior officer as you well know is death. You have been fortunate to be shown leniency once, do not assume this means you are above such punishments forever.”

“I thought I was outside of that chain of command; **_Commander_**.”

You ensured his title dripped with sarcasm.  But if he was at all, further effected by your behaviour, then it was lost as a battered; yet functioning service droid appeared carrying a tray.  The metal shelf-like apparatus covered with a small portion of food.  The droid situating itself at the bedside and holding the food ready. 

It smelt amazing; and your stomach growled.  But you were not about to own up to Kylo Ren, that you really were that hungry.  Or that you really wanted whatever was in that bowl.

“Eat it; before I feed you it myself.”  

Behind the modulator, there was the suggestion of gritted teeth.  Perhaps even you had gotten him to roll his eyes in frustration at you; well that was assuming that he had eyes.  Who knew what he had under that mask.  You were not afraid of him; or his threat.  But it was borne of a reckless stupidity, rather than actual bravery.  An action that you knew, signalled to the more reasonable parts of your cognitive reasonings, that you perhaps were as psychologically damaged as he claimed you to be.

His demands that you take care of yourself; or that he would, made you wonder why then you had been kept alive.  Why you were worth the effort, when so many others had just disappeared in the night.  Removed from their dormitory beds, or else filtered from the medicenter; they had never been seen again.  Or if they had it had been to a completely new assigned number, and role within the organisation.  Why you had been permitted to keep both your life and your number, was something you did not entirely understand.  Nor had you any intentions of asking the pretentious prig to explain it to you.  Instead you were prepared to stumble along blindly in the dark; it was better than being beholden to a man-thing who already wanted you to simper after him calling him lord and master.  

A spluttered suggestion of a cough, had you reaching for a piece of protein.  Intercepting it and chewing on a small nibble, before he could make you.  His tensed muscles shifting back to neutral, as you finished the bite, and reached for another.  Trying your hardest not to look so taken with the meal.  The protein source tasted like actual meat in a thick rich sauce.  Something that you rarely were given the option to try out; your stormtrooper diet consisting mainly of a synthetic and bland foods.  The First Order’s moto, firmly suggesting that as a soldier; your body was an extension of your weapon.

This was good, for all you wanted to throw it in his face and refuse it, saying it was shit.  But lying was not in your protocol, you had been raised since you could remember to admit the truth.  Instead you silently ate, pushing the foods around your plate to prolong your meal.  Slowing down your chewing to avoid having to talk; and always replacing the last mouthful quickly.  Hoping that he would see you were eating and get bored; leaving you to your own devices. 

He seemed not to get the memo. Hovering over you like some macho, military hatched, mother hen.  The noise of a sigh filtering through the mask when your stomach made its final complaint that it had had enough. 

“I can’t eat anymore.”

“I expected more of a fight from you of all people, given your history.”

You frowned, scowling at the realisation that he had to have been looking through your records.  That he would know it all, every triumph, and every failure; including the one that landed you here.   

“I didn’t hit him for what he did to me.”

“Do you think that if your General Hux thought that you hit him for petty jealousy; you would still be here?”

Your lips pressed together into a thin line of thought.  Breathing in deeply to calm yourself.  Losing your temper at him now, would not achieve anything for yourself.  Kylo Ren had only argued that General Hux’s opinion of you was the fair one.  He did not leave any suggestions as to what he thought of your behaviour; if he too believed that version of the truth; and with that mask on, it was impossible to know what to expect of him. 

Another sigh came, possibly words too. Distorted by the mask to just static noise in the background of the noise of the medicentre.  Suddenly very vulnerable to your self-pity; but refusing to let it swallow you back to restful apathy.  There was something unsaid, but thought in his opinion of the actions that had led you here to him.  Something dangerous; something that could make you weak again.  Did he think you had hit the officer for you; or for your butchered men?        

“You hit him for your men, but the weight behind the punch came from your own actions.  Are you done with your meal?”

You nodded, though expected him to make good on his promise to feed you the rest.  Pulling your knees up ready to strike, and then at least bolt for the door.  His actions surprising then when instead he took away the tray, and began stripping the now empty cannula bag from you.  Providing to you the medical care that the droid should have been summoned back to do.  It allowed you to permit yourself to let him closer.  Realising as he reached one muscled arm across you, to place a dressing over the needle-stick that it was pointless to fight him.  Taller and more powerful already than you, he had the force on his side, and you would not win.  You were well muscled from your job as a soldier; far from the petit tiny thing of an officer’s civilian born wife.  But still he was far more so.  He could probably still snap you in half; and yet you could feel the anger rising at the truth in his words.  The truth you had kept hidden so deeply that you had thought it non-existent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The hints of the plot are there, I am going to be slowly introducing more of her backstory and the reasons why a she never went for reconditioning.


	4. Chapter 4

Contrary to Kylo Ren’s opinion of you, you did not seek death; simply put you were looking for a silence to your raging emotions.  An end to having to feel as lonely and cut off as you did.  First you began learning to survive each day simply by waking up.  Each morning sitting up and reminding yourself that what had been done to you, had not managed to kill you yet.  Inwardly a constant state of mixed emotions.  Settling first to keep dwelling in the constant state of self-pity that achieved nothing.  Then after moving onwards and towards anger; you became your bitter mess of not just self-loathing, but despising.  Hating everything, everyone; especially Kylo Ren.  Anger at everything but him, seemed to have at most-times given way to miserable apathy.  Something that Kylo Ren vehemently refused to let you dwell in; using your anger at him almost as fuel to top up your depleted energy reserves. 

He had quickly decided less on keeping his distance from you and instead seemed to have chosen to pour most of his efforts into annoying you.  Keeping you close to him; interrupting you when you were not.  Mumbling complaints at the jobs left undone by you, for all it was he who seemed to be the one who was constantly finding new ways to prevent you from carrying out your job.  Confusing you perhaps all the more; by leaving token gifts.  Odd ones, and definitely ones not to be confused with those given to a friend or of a romantic nature; gifts of weaponry.  Weapons perhaps of a peculiar nature.  Beautifully made, but antique almost in nature.  Especially given the ones that had been available to you as a stormtrooper. Weekly a new one seemed to appear, then daily he seemed to appear to drag you to a practice room.  Dragging your weakened body through a gruelling ritual of punishing exercise.  Each week the lessons based upon a different gifted weapon.  Unforgiving in their nature, until you either mastered the skill needed to wield the gift; or else became passable enough at defending yourself from them to move onto the next. 

Given your fragile mental state, his company therefore was not at all what you wanted.  But unfortunately for you, it was everything that you needed.  The physical exercise was not exactly complicated; next to the daily drills and battle practices of Captain Phasma’s gruelling training regime it was nothing mentally straining.  But to your currently under worked muscles and weakened physique; it was a gruelling and painful punishment.  One that you thankfully adapted quickly enough to survive; grateful when the ache of disuse finally wore off your muscles.

Within a month a routine was set; one that seemed to have nothing to do with being his chief of security. Daily you would run through the morning’s physical exercises with Kylo Ren.  Weights and machines would work to help you to rebuild weeks of wasted muscle structure.  Working those rebuilt muscles until they allowed you to begin stretching out your limbs; working at them until you were almost as flexible as he was.  Then come the afternoons you would move onto sparing with Kylo Ren.  The thing behind the mask, exercising beyond the point of exhaustion.  All of it meant to leave you exhausted enough by the evening’s meal that you were compliant enough to do little more than sit.  After which, you would return to your rooms.  Ignoring the blurred images you passed in every mirror and reflective surface to claim a few moments of blessed peace and silence.  Showering, then returning to Kylo Ren’s company as directed; knowing that it was better this way. 

Your evenings though were less pleasant than the days.  The time here set aside to deal with the part of you that seemed to refuse to heal; your mind.  Meditation, it seemed was an essential part of the Force-user’s way of life.  Spent silent and in contemplation one’s self, it was easy enough to mistakenly use the time to dwell on your imperfections.  To work over the countless ways that you had failed both yourself and the First Order.  Reminiscing over everything on a constant loop, until you had a million and one ways to make it better next time.  All of them wrong according to Kylo Ren; and all of them a apparently not the lesson he was trying to teach you.  

“You have been here a month, and yet you have not yet managed to clear your thoughts.  Close your eyes and open your mind.”

The synthesised irritation in his voice made you grit your teeth.  As always, the creature, Kylo Ren required impossible perfection; and as always you could not manage perfection.  It seemed that Kylo Ren truly did require an impossible silence; one of both your mind and body.  Each meditation time spent cruelly trying to quell the doubts that ran rampantly through your over worked mind.  The thoughts agonisingly louder the closer you came to the recall of how you had succumbed to your failure. 

“I can’t.”

“You can, let go your thoughts and imagine nothing; be silent.”

His modulated thoughts held tattered edges of frustration to them; a frustration that seemed hell bent on refusing to let you fail him.  The pressure easily adding to everything else of you and leading you to a predictable pattern; run, escape.

It was surprisingly easy to run from him; probably because he would always let you go.  Each time your fear making sure you returned to your room; hiding beneath the covers.  Laying there under them in a curled ball of weakness and fear at what you felt.  Shaking but not permitting the tears that would in your weakened and drunk state, easily fall to scald your cheeks.  Holding them at bay with a balanced cocktail of numbness and self-prescribed pain.  Ensuring you had washed all traces off them from them come the heavier meal he provided at supper time. 

He would permit you to run from meditation; but he would not permit you to run from your meals.  Dragging you from the hole you hid in; and any others you chose to try until you learnt simply to come at the first knock on your door.  At least that way he would respect the privacy of your chambers.  Sitting with him in the small kitchen was odd.  He seemed to have chosen to feed you every meal; though he himself did not eat.  It was always a source of amusement to you, to debate if he was wasting time by ensuring all the meals were painstakingly cooked for you by hand; or it was just that he had murdered the droids who could have done it for you.  His masked face always watching you.  An annoyance coaxing you, as you scooped as many spoonful’s of the food into your mouth, as your straining stomach would tolerate before it threatened to revolt.  Always he argued that you were not forcing enough food into your still shrunken stomach.  Shadowing you afterwards to ensure you really had permitted the nutrients to work their way into your stomach, as though you would further harm yourself by purging yourself of them.   A thought he was vastly mistaken in.  You had no desire to die, just as you had no real opinion on if you continued to live.  It was just that your body was a vessel of gut churning apathy and anger that made it impossible to eat.  Though you did persevere. Each other day or so, you seemed to manage to add another mouthful to your count.  Working with him, until one day you managed to clear the small plateful he had given you.  His hands swift to remove the plate, before you could fully register the milestone.

That done you were permitted to return to your room to lay awake; supposedly to sleep in dreamless exhaustion.  Listening to every sound the fortress made in the quiet hours of the dark and listening to the sounds of Commander Ren as he worked on.  Your rest often broken by sounds of him in the rooms above.  It seemed he was less able to sleep than you could; thought you never thought to enquire as to why.  Cross that in truth, Kylo Ren seemed to have embraced the challenges you fetched him; whilst you could not bring yourself to do so.  Still bitter that you had been left here; still yearning to return to your old life.     

Whilst his tantrums still happened, they seemed to take place in the upper levels during the time you were hidden from him in your bed.  Kylo Ren probably destroying the very rooms you were not permitted into; but therefore thankfully making them not at all your problem.  Leaving you to lay exhaustedly awake until you could manage sleep.  Ignoring the unmodulated curses and wordless screams echoing down the stairs.  His unaltered voice different as it rang off the cavernous chambers.  He sounded so human; so vulnerable that you wanted to enquire if he was okay.  So young sounding, but deep and rumbling.  He made you at odds with yourself, wanting to go to help him; whilst the bitter side of you mocked him and savagely thought it just retribution for his lack of patience.  These paddies leaving you confused as to what concerns a man like him possibly had to feel anger over; knowing come the morning the cycle would just repeat.   

Eventually the clothing that you had arrived in fit you once more.  The once familiar garments you had worn under the armour you had not been permitted to bring with you, had felt odd when you put them on.  Your reflection even more so as you stared.  Trying to work out what it was that was unsettling about it. 

It had been weeks since you had last properly looked at yourself; perhaps long before your transfer.  Now the woman who stared back at you seemed odd; so very different from the one who had left the Finalizer.  Your hair perhaps was the most obvious change; though not at all an unpleasant one.  You had not had the tools or the order to cut it, so in your apathy you had let if grow. Now it hung longer on you than you could remember ever having seen it.  The waves in coming as low as your collar in places, framing your face in a feminine way, that your previously shorn scalp had not.

It was not the physical changes you realised, but the mental ones.  The lessons you had not known you had been learning, the changes that had crept up on you so slowly that you had allowed them to happen.  Quickly you stripped of every item of clothing.  Gathering everything that had previously been yours into a heap.  Dressing instead in the clothing Kylo Ren had stocked for you and until now insisted you use.  Scooping your old clothing up into a ball, taking just a moment to look at the changes. 

The colour was still the same.  Monotone black, it too was built for practicality; but the cut was so different.  It was not extravagant, but it was far more flattering.  Something about it whispered femininity in subtle way you had not been permitted before and fascinated you.  It nipped slightly at the waist and flared in ways that allowed movement when you fought.  Creating a shape that a soldier would not have been allowed; reinforcing Kylo Ren’s threat that your rank was inconsequential to him.        

 


	5. Chapter 5

 

“Our visitors appear to have arrived.”

You scowled at the man waiting outside your door; clutching the bundle of cloth to you.  The sudden appearance of Kylo Ren’s synthetic voice, no longer making you jump in surprise.  The darkly clad titan only really seemed to startle you now when you noticed his sudden; though no longer as prolonged absences from you.  The silence that was the void of noises when he wasn’t practically breathing down your neck and correcting each minute mistake in the way you held a blade. 

He repeated his words; and you scowled in answer as you set the clothing aside.  Standing to face him, though you did not remove the snarl from your face.  Leaving it in place as an open show of insubordination at his disturbance.  His mask as always, just a blank show of indifference to your attitude.  Nothing at all to suggest he had noticed you showed him such disrespect; let alone expended the energy to care that you were blatantly dismissing him.  Simply a full turn that suggested rather than commanded you should follow him down the corridor.  Deciding at the last moment to follow, choosing to dawdle behind, rather than expending both the energy and effort needed to keep up with him. 

Arriving into the meeting room late, rather than alongside or in rank behind Commander Ren.  Your choice of clothing perhaps not the best to greet your former colleagues.  Disrespecting Kylo Ren further by pulling off a textbook salute of a greeting to the two seated Officers.  Ignoring the masked frontage that seemed to stare at your audacity.  The only suggestion that perhaps Kylo Ren was more put out by your behaviour then he seemed to be that he took longer to order you to sit than usual. Waiting until you had done as requested before paying any attention to the matter at hand.

It was unfair and stupid of you, but you didn’t entirely pay much attention to what was being discussed.  Almost letting yourself scowl at Kylo Ren as he droned on about provisions and alterations to a ship.  The officers toggling between holographs of various TIE’s.  Whittling them down to two; and then debating further on the merits of both.  Brought back to the present slowly as you realised the tone of the conversation was changing.

“Send the girl, doubtless she is any good for anything else.”

The flippantly patronizing tone of the lead officer; fully fetched you out of whatever daydream you had been in.  Blinking in fury fuelled surprise at such a disrespectful term for you, as much as the sneered pull of the man’s upper lip as he looked at your chest.  Cross not just at him, but at yourself.  Knowing that any attempts to ask him to clarify would both show disrespect and cement his opinion of you.   Ashamed to realize that you were blushing furiously at the suggestion that you were not fit to be here in a professional capacity. 

The visiting officers were older than some of the younger First Order officers you worked with aboard the Finalizer; and so were their ideals.  Their faces may have been unfamiliar but having been introduced to you at the beginning of the meeting; their names, and reputations were not.  You knew them from lectures and parades, as being older members of the order.  Their prestigious family names left over from the last days of the Imperium.  Their Imperial breeding and expectations for you easily cemented the moment they patronizingly repeated the suggested you should go and provide refreshments.  It seemed that the gossip aboard the Finalizer had clearly followed you here.  Making the you feel uncomfortable at the wandering eyes of the visiting men.  Their sneers leaving you in no doubt that there were plenty of horrible misunderstandings as to why you had been exiled here.  None of them in your favour.         

It didn’t help matters that Commander Ren had decided to dress you differently to your previous colleagues.  Now you wished you had followed your first instincts and worn the black shirt and trousers of your under armour, rather than your usual clothing; at least then there would have been no misunderstandings.        

It was best to slink off and give yourself time to recover away from the staring men; and you went to do this.  Prevented only from doing to by the arrival of a fully intact and functioning service droid bearing a tray.  The small black spherical droid following proudly behind in a prideful way that suggested it might have had something to do with the now working service droid.  Its enthusiasm pulling your interest and giving you something else to focus on rather than coming up with a reason to escape.  Watching it for once cheerfully rolling itself into place besides his master.  Beginning to show a display a new image of a tie fighter; almost an amalgamation of the two short listed ships.  Adding when prompted by his master, the necessary data and diagrams.  The obvious idea being to you to merge the two designs into one.             

“It will not work, General Hux has already run simulations; the space needed to make it more manurable, would in turn make the cock pit too small for you Commander.”

There was boredom in the lead officer’s voice; and no show of respect for the commander.  One that judging by the roll of his shoulders, had not gone unnoticed by Kylo Ren.  Himself leaning back lazily in his chair, an air of patient warning there that went unnoticed by the bloated confidence of the Officers.       

“It seems your General Hux is a bigger fool that I originally thought.  Clearly the droid has a different opinion as to if it will work.”

For once you liked the way Kylo Ren was speaking. Perhaps because it was not you whom he was annoying; or maybe because he was doing what you were prevented by rank by doing.  Your face hardly dismissive of the affront the two greying men seemed to have finally taken to being spoken to so rudely.  One almost spitting his tea in his hurry to cover to defend what you were happy to hazard a guess at, were more his designs and simulations than General Hux.  Cut off by Kylo Ren as he rose from his seat.

“I would suggest you manufacture all three, that way perhaps a more physical test will ascertain which is the better style for myself and my knights.”

The meeting it seemed was over at that comment.  Kylo Ren deciding to leave the room before either man could question the financial soundness of producing the ships in question.  His rudeness perhaps what had kept the officers from questioning him.  None of the wrongness of his behaviour seemed to have mattered to Kylo Ren who had not taken the time to look back to the officers as he strode to the door.  Not giving any niceties such as a verbal warning that he considered this meeting over.  A very different experience than the formalities of First Order procedures.  The annoyance pausing at the door to order you to follow him; and thus, saving you from a mortifyingly embarrassing situation.  Tilting his head in a manner that would allow him only to look at you, as though it was not worth the time to turn around.  Another affront to the men whom General Hux had clearly chosen as his representative in this matter.  Suggestive to anyone with a brain, that men who ranked higher than you, were treated lower here.  Waiting to see that you had followed orders and seeing you from the door before he ordered the officers away. 

“You may see yourselves to your ship when you are ready.”

Outside of the room your self-control was failing you fast.  Gone was the efficient soldier you had tried to be; so was the fairy tail idea that you would return to your previous role.  Now you were filled only with the desperate need to get as far away from what had just happened as possible.  Your feet gradually speeding up to the patter of your heart.   

“Where are you going?”

Kylo Ren’s voice stopped you suddenly in your tracks.  Pursing your lips and pulling a face that was anything but respectful of the annoyance still coming towards you.  Unable to ignore the sting of salt running your cheeks; furious that you had let them upset you this way.  Tense and afraid now that Ren would make you turn and face him; that he too would want to see your embarrassment.   

“Pick a weapon, meet me in the gym.”

It was a relief to hear him move away; to know that he did not need to see how unset you were.  Giving you time to marshal yourself as you took the back stairs to your chamber.  Pleased to be given the privacy to wash your face and compose yourself.  Choosing for yourself your choice of weapon from the racks Kylo Ren had commissioned in your rooms.  Swinging it a few times in the large central space of your bedroom, before you felt your nerves had settled enough to allow you to leave the comfort of your room and join Kylo Ren in the gym.  Still annoyed, but at last able to stand still without shaking; confused as to .

The man was pacing the floor as you arrived, turning to face you and greeting your choice of weapon rather than you.  Replacing the one he had chosen and picking out a heavier, blunter weapon; one that would hurt more if he could get close enough to hit.

“A halberd.”

He pulled into position, assuming that you had chosen your weapon to appear more of a defender than the aggressor.  Moving quicker than you could have done, to block what you had thought was a swift and deceptive attack.  Catching you off balance and needlessly taking the counter attack further than was necessary; hurtling you to the floor.

“You are allowing them to make you unbalanced; up and try again.”

There was no sympathy or suggestion that he should show you leniency; just an observance that he had noticed how much the visitors had unnerved you.  Scrambling to your feet and bringing the weapon back into its starting position.  This time caution ensuring that you were lasting longer than the original single moved attack. Wincing when the blunt edge of his weapon connected with your hip and taking a moment to step back, angry that Kylo Ren allowed you no quarter and insisted on following through with another attack.  Taunting you again with that bored, disinterested tone that seemed to be the only one he could muster for you. Ignoring your request to give you a moment.

“Do you think your enemy will show you leniency?”

His cruelty was making you angrier, though you struggled to let yourself show it.  Lying to yourself that it was the combat that was making snarl in effort; not that he was getting to you.  You were not about to give him another victory over you.

“Or are you just letting one transgression define your future.”

At that you dropped the weapon you were holding.  Letting go mid form and taking the blow Kylo Ren was aiming at your face full force.  Seeing the sparks before you realised you had also fallen to the floor; touching at the spot where his weapon had hit. Blinking in an odd spaced out sense of weirdness as your fingers came away with a coating of blood.  Staring at the spots that dripped on the floor; swallowing as the room spun and your ears rang.

“You dropped your weapon.”

A towel came into focus, Kylo Ren holding it as he crouched down to gingerly press it to your throbbing forehead.  Pushed aside by you as you turned your back on him and began half crawling away, half trying to scramble to your feet.  Kylo Ren offering what you guessed could have been a apology, but was more likely an explanation for the hit.     

“I had expected another response.”

The shock of the hit was wearing off, and you were angrier than you had been before the hit.  Eventually making it to your feet, and walking forwards.  The room still fuzzy at the edges, made worse by your temper.  Slipping on a wet patch of the padded floor as you went, shocked that he of all people caught you.  

“I don’t need your help.”

You hoped your words dripped with icy vehemence and did not come out as slurred protest.  Pushing aside his arms again, but somehow managing to get more tangled in them as you fought him off.

“Hold on, let me.. Will you just stop it!”

For all physically he held the upper hand over you, you were still managing to escape his hold on him.  Fighting him the eagerness and ferocity of a clovii-cat; but with none of its fineness.  Hissing and screaming like a woman possessed.  Unable to escape his hold and somehow managing to leave a shoe and rip your top in the process.  The energy to struggle not gone as he practically pinned you under his body.         

“Why do you let him define you so much.”

He had both your wrists pinned; not that you could deal much damage to him.  There was no skin to scratch, and each of your punches had failed to have an effect on him.  So it was taunting all the more to realise that he was holding you because it was your safety he feared for here, not his.  Squaring your jaw, you sucked in your teeth in anger.

“I don’t want to discuss it, definitely not with you of all people.”

The throbbing beat in your forehead was just adding to your annoyance of the situation.  Your eyes prickling at the annoyance of it all, threatening to come in quicker when he gave a spluttered breathy noise, filtered by his vocoder until you almost, could not work out what it was.  Winded when you realised by the shake of his chest what he was doing.

“You bastard, its not funny; he cost me my.”

A hand left one wrist pinning your neck.  Fingers biting in either side of your windpipe until you struggled to pull in wheezy breaths.

“He cost you nothing, your behaviour did; you are not the victim you think you are.  The sooner you realize this, the sooner we can move on.”

It was the truth in what he said that cut the deepest.  Not just that you had thought yourself the injured party in all of this when it took two to tango; but that you were not going back to the finalizer.  A part of you giving into the anger in a way you had only done so aboard the Finalizer.  Hooking your feet up to your chest, using the soles of them and the flats of your hands to begin pushing against the thickly muscled, heavily clothed chest above you. 

You were shocked to have dislodged him.  Even more so that he almost sailed across the room in a near perfect arch.  Falling into a heap at the other side of the room, scaring you into almost instant submission.  Mouth agape as he pulled himself from the floor, making his way over to you.  Taking the time to summon your missing shoe, sending it deftly across the floor to you.

You thought he was cross at you.  So the suggestion that you put the shoe on and head to the medical bay was something of a further shock to you.  More so when he held out a hand once you were done with the shoe, helping you from the floor. 

“You have done something similar before?”

It was the first time you had heard a softer emotion filter through his mask.  Subdued already it was easier to remember the shocked face of General Hux at the mess you had made of the officer and the men who tried to pull you off him.  Shivering at the memory and the icy feeling flooding your nervous system, flushing out the heat that had previously been there.

“Yes.”

Even your voice was subdued as you walked shoulder to shoulder with Kylo Ren.  Proceeding him into the medical bay and sitting when gestured to on a medical gurney.  Almost oblivious to the gathering pile of medical supplies next to you.  So much so that it took the stinging press of bitter-sharp disinfectant to pull you back to what was going on. 

“Sorry.”       

You gave a short sharp laugh at Kylo Ren’s apology; amused really that he had done far worse and yet apologised for cleaning a wound.  Mumbling something about it being okay as he dabbed it again.   

“Can you only do it when you’re angry?”

Looking up at his mask you shrugged.  Keeping eye contact with the smoked transparasteel steel of his mask.  Shaking your head when nothing else came from the mouth piece, not a refusal; but an inability to answer it.

“I don’t know.”

The words came out dry and afraid.  Weighted fearfully on your tongue as you broke from his line of vision.  Sighing with some relief when he gave over his questions and reached for the tape.  Tearing strips off it and laying it over the cut.

“Were there others like you in the barracks?”

At first you shook your head, this time in answer to the question.  Stopping when a sudden flash of a memory made you less sure of the answer.  Stormtroopers that had shown odd abilities, like being too quick to know where to shoot, or anticipating the oddest of orders too well.  Or worse, those that questioned what you knew to be the wrong orders; like you had.   

“Perhaps, but they didn’t last long.”

You didn’t want or need to elaborate on where they went.  Nobody really knew.  But they either disappeared from the dormitories over night; or were pushed too hard until they could be sent to the medicentre.  None of which were ever seen again.  But always they were escorted out by grey uniformed medical officers.  Each empty bed a lesson to be the best; but not too much so.  Fearful that to put your head too far above the parapet was a death sentence.

“The fool didn’t even know what he was dealing with.”

You guessed the fool in question was General Hux.  Intrigued a little by what all of this meant to Kylo Ren and why it was suddenly not a bad thing to have extra abilities.  Looking at him once more, this time perhaps met by more respect from him, than he had shown you before as he crouched opposite you.  His head stooped low enough by the position that he had to look up at you.

“Will they come for me now?”

You meant the men in grey coats.  The nightmarish nocturnal visitors that even as a child you had been terrified of.  Cold sweat beading at the memory of laying in your bunk and pretending to be asleep.  Watching one of your peers being led gently by their hands to the door. 

“As long as you are useful to myself, then no one will be coming for you.”

“How can I be useful to you?”

He had cupped one hand around your upper arm.  Gently in a show of encouragement for you, squeezing lightly before letting go and rising to his full height again.  Instructing you to follow, something that having awakened a fear he could utilize you scrambled to do so.  Entering the kitchen and taking a seat as ordered to, obedient to a fault.  His mask following you, dismissing your offers to help as he placed a pot onto the stove.  His stance less imposing than it had been before, as he busied around the kitchen.

“I had not realised they scared you that much.”

“They took my friends.”

“I am sorry.”

He seemed to show more emotion than you did, despite him having each word filtered.  It was a small show of contrition at what had passed between you today.  Such a small amount, but still so much kindness this evening from a man whom you had thought could not show you any at all.  His subsequent actions to prepare your food making taking up his time and concentration.  Placing a small meal in front of you, one that signalled that he had further plans for the day.  Taking the seat opposite you and resting his arms on the table.  Explaining at last what was going on to you.

“This is not exile, but a chance to be of use once more to the Order.  The others are sceptical, they think that you are too disturbed; too broken for anything more than termination.”

The idea of death was shocking, despite having at one time wished for it.  Turning your stomach and making you despite the threats push aside what was left of the meal. Kylo Ren despite his threats taking it from you and putting it to one side.  Then reaching for the cup you were about to drink from, making you frown and cry out in complaint as he slid it away from you.  Taunting you as he did.

“Would you like a drink?”

“Look if this is about the food I’ll eat it.”

“Take it.”

You reached across the table for the drink, stopping when he refused to let go of it.  Your frown deepening and threatening to turn more to a pout.  He cocked his head to one side.  Taking the time to study you before releasing his hold; but keeping his hands splayed either side of it.  Relaxed but ready to grab the beaker if you reached for it.   

“You have to use your mind, tell the cup to get into your hand.”

It was your turn to shake your head, practically spluttering a ‘what’ at the stupidity of the question. 

“Like you did when you pushed me, but instead tell it to come to you.”

Your mouth opened a little, your jaw tilting towards him in in cynical disbelief of the task he was setting you.  You were not capable of the task; stormtroopers were not force adepts.

“When they picked you out, they chose you all based on a minute force ability.  None of you had a large _midi-chlorian count._  It was apparently a fine line between making you all the best at what you all did; and being too skilled to manage; but it made sense.  Those that were too skilled were filtered out during childhood.  You just were clever; you learnt to mask your abilities.”

It did not answer why they had not killed you the moment they realised something was wrong with their calculations and that you were unsafe.  Sitting straighter and shuffling your shoulders more, breathing in deeply and reaching out.  This time with both your prominent hand and your mind.

The cup flopped over, caught by Ren’s hands and righted again.  The action not exactly a failure; but not good enough to be a success.  Your heart pattering faster as you realised the potential, now less sceptical of the task that Kylo Ren was asking of you.  Mouth a little wider as you gaped at the rocking liquid in the cup. 

“Gentler, it is an order; but you must make it as a request.”

Nodding you broke your gaze from Kylo Ren.  Licking your lips and pulling them into a line of concentration.  Sucking them between your teeth as you closed your eyes.  Taking a deep breath and following Kylo Ren’s advice.  Almost jumping as the beaker slid into your hand, hot tea spilling over your knuckles and making your eyes blink open to look down at what you have achieved.

“I did it.”

Your voice was hardly that of a whisper and now you had a mouth full of tea.  But when he nodded; you took a moment to grin all the same, looking at him as your mouth twisted.  Blinking as you swallowed, the bitter tea, realising the comradery he was offering by these weeks of training.  They had seen you as little more than a whore for all you had done nothing they would not.  Now he was giving you a chance to hold your head high here at least.  You were not to know what yet, but there was to be purpose.           


End file.
